


Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground

by orphan_account



Category: Letterkenny (TV)
Genre: Depression, First Time, M/M, Pining, Substance Abuse, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9641579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Daryl came back to Letterkenny to attend a wedding, but fuck, it felt more like going to a funeral. A funeral for an old life and old friends.





	1. Where my discontent once began

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to the album Deepest Roots and Darkest Blues by Woods of Ypres while reading this for extra angst.

Driving down the 86 towards Letterkenny in his old van, Daryl had to make a conscious effort to remember the route he needed to take to get to his mother’s house to avoid certain sights. The properties that lined the road, interspaced by vast fields that had already been harvested of their crops and now lay fallow or newly planted, looked hauntingly familiar now that he took them in sober after all this time. This was going to hurt, but he had to go anyway.

Crossing through the centre of town took only a moment. Though he rationally knew Letterkenny was a small town, it had always felt a lot more substantial before he moved to the city. He couldn’t help but notice that new stores had come and old ones gone, and that some changed hands and names, driving home the realisation that life here had gone on without him. That the Letterkenny he had preserved in his memories no longer existed as such.

Passing the Ag Hall couldn’t be avoided, nor could he help looking, or stop the memories from flooding him. It surprised him he still had so many, after what he put his body and mind through. Dancing with Bonnie at the Jamboree. Squirelly Dan snoring while McMurray rambled. Standing in the dark parking lot with a car full of screeching possums, plotting revenge on Stewart.  The impatience radiating off Wayne as they sat through a meeting side by side.

He was here for a wedding, but fuck, it felt more like going to a funeral.   

His mother’s house came into view, and though Daryl pulled up to her property, he didn’t immediately get out of his car. Passing through town was one thing, but setting foot on the ground where he’d had to bury lifelong friendships – where he tried to bury himself – all because he was too fucking soft, because he was a fucking –

He took a deep breath. There wasn’t much of a risk of running into anyone, attending his mom’s third wedding. If her own son got tired of her string of unsuccessful marriages, imagine what other people thought. Still, she wasn’t even fifty. He sure as hell wasn’t going to begrudge her another attempt to be happy. Maybe this one wasn’t going to turn out to be an alcoholic or a wife-beater.

Making his way into the house via the back door, he nodded to acquaintances and shook the hands of distant relatives, until he found his mom accepting flowers from a friend.

‘Darry, you made it!’ She set the flowers aside to take his face in her hands, and brushed his curls back.

He accepted her kiss with a wry smile. ‘Hi mom. Big fucking day.’

‘How are things in Toronto, Daryl?’ her friend asked.

Daryl summoned an oblivious expression. ‘Not so bad.’

Not so bad meaning that he was still alive, in decent health, and most importantly, clean. Most of the time, anyway. There wasn’t much to be said for the rest of his life there. He’d gotten the help he couldn’t find in Letterkenny, and carved out something of an existence. He could sustain himself working a minimum wage job at a distribution centre that provided a meal service for the elderly. He missed farm life like a hole in the head, but at least what he had now was void of the extreme ups and downs of his life in Letterkenny; of the people he was still trying to move on from.

‘We were all curious to see if you’d bring anyone,’ the friend pried. ‘Maybe a nice city girl…?’

Daryl shook his head. ‘It’s just me.’

When the doorbell rang, his mom looked around at the modest gathering, doing a mental headcount.

‘That’ll be your pal, Darry,’ she said, squeezing his upper arm. ‘I invited him so you wouldn’t be alone with all the old people.’

Daryl’s mouth dried out, seeing who uneasily appeared in the doorway holding the hand of an eager four year-old girl.

He couldn’t have expected his mom to know, because he’d never been honest about why he skipped town, but fuck, he wished she’d given him a heads up that Wayne would be here. It had been about five years since they’d last referred to each other as pals. The last words spoken between them rang through Daryl’s head as clearly as if he hadn’t been too fucked up to remember his own name at the time. _No one who does meth is a pal of mine._

Thinking about that killed him every time.

Their gazes crossed, and slid past each other. No _How’re you now_ , nothing.

Wayne and Tanis’ daughter wore a white dress and a flower in her long brown hair, and Daryl couldn’t help but wonder who Wayne was with, now. Not Tanis, he figured, or she’d be here with him and their kid. Daryl didn’t think the two of them ever had more potential than the convenient fuck that accidentally conceived their daughter. But Wayne sure as fuck didn’t dress his kid like that, so there had to be someone. It was like Gail pointed out: he had the pick of the litter around town, and god damn if that wasn’t at the root of Daryl’s problems.

Daryl moved to the kitchen to see if he could get a cup of coffee and hide out a bit until the actual ceremony began in the back yard. When he eventually stepped out to have a dart, it seemed Wayne had gotten the same idea. Daryl ignored him as best as he could, lighting up behind his hand.

‘Where the fuck have you been, Darry?’

Daryl exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘What’s it to you?’

He didn’t have to look at Wayne to imagine his troubled squint, or the way his thought process played out on his face before he realised there was no good answer to that question.

‘Answer the question, you fucking dink.’

‘Aw, you miss me?’ Daryl tried for a goofy grin, but found that somewhere along the way he’d lost that capability for that dynamic, or lost that part of himself. All that came out was biting sarcasm.

‘Miss you? Fuck, I’ve been wondering when your fucking body was going to turn up every day for four years now.’

Daryl flicked the butt of his dart into the grass, and went back inside. On his way upstairs, he grabbed a bottle of cheap whiskey from the pantry despite the hour of the day. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to spend today tiptoeing around Wayne like a beaten dog, and there was only one thing that ever made that easier.


	2. Years later still restless and depressed

There was no escaping the questions about his own love life, or lack thereof, by nosy relatives. Weddings were so much worse for that than any other family gathering. He didn’t have any satisfying answers or charming stories to tell. Sure, he picked up a girl in the city for a bit of toe-curling every now and then, he’d had a sweetie at work for a while – but most of the time he’d been alone. Sometimes he’d go on Grindr to find the toughest guy around and fuck him in a public bathroom or a dark city park, and it never was what he needed it to be. Those encounters always left him feeling empty and wishing he could still patch that hole inside him with drugs and alcohol, but look where that got him.  

Things hadn’t sucked so bad when it was just Wayne and Angie, and Daryl was still his best bud, and that unfortunate crush was just a fact of life; something Daryl learned to accept early on, like other depressing truths about his life’s potential. Then Angie left, and Wayne went looking for love, and Daryl couldn’t help but hope. Couldn’t help but think _I’m right here_ while Wayne went on dates and fucked girls left and right.

That afternoon when he had to hear that Angie wanted Wayne back, and that Tanis was going to have his baby, all the while Wayne was looking at Gail’s cousin as if she was the greatest thing in the world even though they'd just met, that was when Daryl mentally checked himself out of the situation, and life in general.

Drinking more barely helped, since habituation made his tolerance for alcohol high enough that it ended up costing too much. The skids had been so gleeful to see him come that he almost considered finding another dealer,  but Stewart and Devon’s smug fucking faces didn’t really matter anymore once he got fucked up.  

It was never supposed to be a long term solution, and he should have known better, seeing what it did to people, but there wasn’t much of a point to his existence to begin with, so erasing the last bit of himself didn’t feel particularly dramatic. Until he wasn’t welcome anywhere anymore, except in fucking Stewart’s basement. That was when he knew he had to leave this shithole behind and salvage what was left of the rest of his life.

After the ceremony everyone else started drinking, which made him feel a bit less guilty about it – only a little concerned for the handful of young children that kept getting underfoot until his mom had a cupcake decoration station set up for them.

The second time Daryl went back inside after having a dart in the yard, both Wayne and Katy had joined the kids on tiny chairs around the low table, making a mess as much as helping out. Passing them in his aimless wandering, he caught Katy’s eye.

‘Hi Katy.’

‘Go home, Daryl.’  

He considered saying he was home, that this place, his mother’s house, _was_ his home. But it hadn’t been for a long time, and his current room, the one that held his unmade bed in the corner of a mostly vacant space, wasn’t home either. There was only one place he’d ever been happy to consider home.

‘In not too long,’ he muttered, assuming Katy meant his room up in Toronto.

Wayne watched the exchange with an impassive face, ignoring the kid that held a pink-sprinkled cupcake under his nose.

‘Daddy, eat it. It’s for you.’

When Daryl moved on, he heard Katy ask her little niece: ‘Did you know we used to have one of these every year at the farm when it was Darry’s birthday? We always threw him super soft birthday parties. You would’ve loved it. There’d be a pony and we’d all put on tiaras.’

‘Not anymore?’

‘Not in a while. Not since he moved to the city.’

As people paid less and less attention to him, Daryl found himself a windowsill to sit in while he poured some more whiskey down the hatch. Just as he began to wonder if there’d be anything to eat soon, Wayne’s daughter skipped over, holding a heavily decorated cupcake. She extended her whole arm in an eerily familiar way.

‘This one’s for you.’

Daryl set down the bottle of whiskey to accept the cupcake with an awkward thanks.

‘You can come sit with us if you want.’

He shook his head. ‘I should go home.’  

He was too shitfaced to get behind the wheel and read the road signs with enough accuracy to end up in the right place since he only made the trip once before, but parking his car against a tree at seventy miles per hour didn’t sound that bad at this point.

Getting up while searching his pocket for his keys made the ground lurch up towards him, and for a second there he thought he was going to have a spit. Someone steadied him with a hand under his elbow.

‘Easy there, super chief.’ Wayne steered him out of the living room. ‘Take about twenty to twenty-five percent off the whiskey. Are you going to have a spit?’

‘No,’ Daryl slurred, stumbling outside. He managed to take about three steps before throwing up on the front lawn.    

‘Sort yourself out,’ Wayne muttered.

Daryl wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and fished for his keys. ‘Yeah. I’ll go home.’


	3. Mine was that of a quiet love - deep and true

Wayne snatched the car keys out of Daryl’s hands, and pushed him in the direction of the road. ‘Start walking.’

‘It’s a long fucking way to Toronto,’ Daryl protested half-heartedly.

‘You’re an idiot.’ Wayne guided him in the right direction with a hand on the back of his neck, as if he were some silly kid. ‘You can sleep it off on the farm, and help me chore in the morning for the trouble.’

‘Won’t your girl mind?’

Wayne kept staring straight ahead. ‘I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about.’

As they passed Wayne’s truck parked on the side of the road, Daryl stopped. ‘You’re forgetting your kid.’

Another shove. ‘Katy’s taking her back to Tanis at the rez tonight.’

There were so many questions Daryl wanted to ask, desperate for a complete update on what Wayne’s life had been like the last four years. The alcohol, however, limited his ability to translate more complicated thoughts into speech, so all that came out was: ‘How’ve you been?’

‘Well, I’m a dad now.’

‘What about it?’ Daryl asked, not wanting to make assumptions. Wayne’s past standoffishness towards other people’s children might not apply to his own kid the same way. He hoped it didn’t, for her sake.

‘Well, here’s the thing and I’m gonna tell you… It changes you, whether you want it or not.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, it makes you think. I never used to give a shit about kids, but I gotta, now. Who else is going to give a shit about this kid if I don’t? Fuck, I really thought Tanis was going to have an abortion, but I guess she’s not as hard as she’d have everyone believe.’

He left unspoken whether perhaps he wasn’t either.

‘I’ll have you know, I haven’t thought this much about my own dad in forever. About how he did things. What he did wrong. What I’d want to do differently. What type of man I really want to be.’

‘I don’t envy you.’

‘Yeah, do you want to know what, Darry? This whole thing would have been a whole lot fucking easier if I had my best pal by my side.’

‘For what? Doesn’t Squirelly Dan have anything to say about it?’

‘Squirrely Dan has his moments, but fuck… I didn’t even know where the fuck you were.’

‘You could’ve asked my mom.’

‘Do I look like the type of prick that wants to be seen going around chasing after another dude to you?’

‘No, and that’s kind of your problem, isn’t it?’

Wayne’s head swivelled towards him sharply. ‘Better that than turning to skidding for no good fucking reason.’

‘You don’t know the first fucking thing about my reasons.’    

They walked in silence for a long while, along the road first, then through the back fields. A solitary coyote slunk away when it saw them coming, yellow eyes disappearing in the advancing darkness. Daryl saw the farm loom up in the distance. The walk sobered him considerably, and the sight of the property and the barns left him feeling angry and vulnerable.

‘Are you still on meth, then, eh?’ Wayne asked.

‘You saying I look like I’ve been on meth for five years straight?’

‘Well, you can’t blame me for asking.’

‘I got clean pretty soon after I skipped town.’

‘Good for you, Darry. But I still don’t know why you did it.’

‘It’s not worth talking about.’ 

‘See, the fact that you say that only makes me wonder more.’

‘Can we just leave it the fuck alone, Wayne?’

‘Hard no. I think I have a right to know.’

The sound of their feet in the tall grass was the only sound disturbing the night for a moment.

‘It’s cause I’m a fucking Sally, and I don’t know if you noticed, but that’s not a great thing to be around here.’

‘No, I noticed,’ Wayne said quietly. ‘Did I ever make you feel bad about it?’

Daryl shook his head. ‘I don’t recall you that did.’

‘Then what was the fucking problem, Dar?’

‘Guess there wasn’t really any. Just the unfortunate combination of being ten-ply and a d-gen.’

Wayne waited to speak, seemingly abandoned by his usual quick wit.

‘Is it easier in the city? To find a sweetie and everything?’

‘It should be, yeah.’

‘But?’ When Daryl didn’t answer, Wayne prompted: ‘Well, spit it out.’

‘Still hung up on someone,’ Daryl muttered, his heart fluttering nervously in his chest as he got dangerously close to just coming out and saying it.

He walked up the steps to the back porch behind Wayne, who unlocked the door and greeted his dog. Deciding more alcohol wasn’t the way forward, Wayne made them coffee, which they sat drinking at the kitchen table with the soft yellow light overhead illuminating their faces too fucking much for comfort after the relative safety of the darkness outside.

‘I gotta say, it’s good to have you back, even for a little bit. Don’t wait so damn long to come back next time,’ Wayne said, taking a sip from a faded mug with his dog’s face on it.   

Daryl didn’t say anything, torn between the feeling of having burnt too many bridges and at the same time not quite enough. Seeing as his attempt to get over Wayne was a pedestrian effort at best, he shouldn’t be sitting here at this table with him at all.  He should’ve stayed home and given that hockey player with the million dollar legs and the two cent brains a call back to see if they could figure something out.

‘Darry?’ Wayne asked. ‘Who was it?’

‘What?’

‘You said you were hung up on someone, and I figured it had to be someone from back home, since you sort of implied you didn’t really go looking for love in the city. Who was it?’

As Wayne intently peered at him in the low light, Daryl felt the corners of his mouth pull down in an expression of bitter grief.

‘Don’t make me fucking say it.’

Wayne glanced from the table top back up at Daryl’s face, searching it. Daryl didn’t hide his expression.

‘Darry,’ Wayne warned.

‘Figure it out.’

Stormy barked once when yellow eyes shone behind the screen door and then quickly disappeared.

‘Oh, fuck, bud.’ Wayne slowly winced. ‘You’re an idiot.’

Daryl drained his mug and stood up. He figured that by the time he’d walked back to his mom’s house, he’d be sober enough to make the drive to Toronto. Then tomorrow he’d start aspiring to a better life. He’d get his room sorted and make an effort to actually get to know Mike. He had to get over the idea of Wayne for once and for good before it killed him.

‘Give Squirelly Dan my best.’

The screen door fell shut behind him with a sharp click as the magnets connected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't know who Mike is, please go watch this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFcRZQ92GSk. I promise it's pure gold.


	4. Old friends still live their lives where I would’ve died of shame

Daryl had barely descended the porch steps when the screen door opened again.

‘Not so fast, big shoots. Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’ Wayne caught up with him with, and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Thought you said there wasn’t really a problem. I don’t mean to make it one.’

Daryl stood without saying anything, looking at the ground, his shoes, anywhere but at Wayne, feeling hopeless and ashamed.

‘You just gotta give me some time to get used to the idea, okay there, bud?’ Wayne ruffled Daryl’s curls with one of his big hands. ‘No need to run off like some sort of headless fucking chicken.’

Wayne jerked his head towards the house and started towards the porch, trusting Daryl to follow. He did. In the kitchen, Wayne rummaged around in the cupboards.

‘Let’s get into some fucking chips. I haven’t eaten anything but cupcakes all goddamn day.’

They sat eating chips at the table, Wayne stony-faced and Daryl ill at ease. Only crunching and the rustle of foil packaging filled the silence. When Stormy laid her head on Daryl’s thigh, a source of warm, soft comfort, Daryl wiped his greasy fingers on his jeans to scratch her behind the ears.

‘So what’s the story with you and those girls, then?’

‘Darry, no… We don’t need to talk about that,’ Wayne said, with that typical compassion that Daryl thought made him such a standup guy.

‘Pitter patter.’

‘Well… Rosie didn’t stick around long when it became clear me and Tanis had a kid on the way - and what with Angie insisting she wanted me back at every opportunity she got - which was a fucking shame.’

‘Out of the three of them, Rosie was perhaps your best option,’ Daryl agreed.

‘The timing was unfortunate.’ Wayne got them a couple of beers from the fridge. ‘So then I tried to make things work with Angie, but she wasn’t too pleased about me reverting back to my old ways as soon as she left, and it wasn’t long before she reverted back to hers, which is to say she cheated on me again.’

‘What a fucking shithead,’ Daryl muttered.

‘So I’ve been going on dates now and then, but having a kid doesn’t exactly make that a whole lot easier.’  

Daryl grimaced sympathetically at him before taking another swig of his beer.

Talking about other people proved easier for both of them, so Wayne told Daryl all about Katy’s brief career as a model. Her looks and her preference for wearing as little clothing as possible served her well in the city, but it turned out she’d cut her rise to fame short when managing the farm alone and taking care of his daughter at irregular times became too much for Wayne. To her merit, Katy stuck with her motto of _When a man asks you for help, you help him_ , Wayne recounted.

‘Katy Kat’s a great girl,’ Daryl said, nodding.

‘Sure is. See, I always thought you had a thing for Katy.’

Daryl shrugged. Katy and Wayne were both attractive, charismatic people, and he loved them both to some extent. However, he’d never been as comfortable around Katy as around Wayne, and not as desperate for her approval, either. They clashed as often as if they’d been siblings, whereas Wayne and Daryl fit pretty near seamlessly. The only things they ever disagreed about was trivial, like how to grill steaks.

‘And you were sweet on a different girl every week. Didn’t you ever follow through with any of that?’

‘Of course I did, what do you fucking take me for?’

‘Then what’s the whole deal with this?’ Wayne gestured between them.

‘’s What I keep coming back to when the distraction wears off.’

‘Well, you need a better distraction.’ Wayne got up and emptied the last bit of his beer out into the sink.

‘I need a fucking nap, is what I need,’ Daryl said, exhaustion catching up with him. ‘Where can I crash?’

‘I take it you still know where the guest room is?’

Daryl nodded, and headed up the stairs. The old wood creaked under their combined weight as Wayne followed him, heavy steps amplified by heavy boots. When Daryl crossed the landing to the guest room, Wayne called him back. Daryl ignored him the first time, but he persisted.

‘Darry. Hey, Darry.’

‘What?’

Wayne beckoned him with a jerk of his head. ‘Get after her, before I change my mind.’

‘Are you fucking preoccupied?’ Daryl asked in disbelief.

‘Likely, yeah.’

With the more rational side of him resisting every step, Daryl approached to search his face, only the light from downstairs illuminating the dim corridor. Wayne looked mostly defiant, as if squaring off for a fist fight.

Daryl shook his head at the sight. ‘I ain’t kissing you, Wayne.’

‘Well, why the fuck not?’

‘You don’t really want me to.’

‘Fucking try it. In the worst case scenario it might even cure you of the whole damn thing.’

‘I’m here for that,’ Daryl said under his breath, before grabbing Wayne by the back of his neck and crushing their mouths together.

Despite the roughness of it, despite the rigidity of Wayne’s body when Daryl moved a hand to his waist, Daryl’s big, stupid heart seemed to swell in his chest, his blood singing with the joy of feeling Wayne so close. Their quickened breathing interspaced the rustle of their clothes in the quiet hallway as Daryl pressed his body against Wayne’s and angled his head to deepen the kiss.

Something in him shattered when Wayne pulled away moments later with a muttered: ‘ _Fuck_ , is this awkward...’

Taking a step back, Daryl took his hands off him. ‘Told you it was a bad idea.’

He turned on his heel and started back down the hall towards the guest room again, gathering the shreds of his dignity about him.

‘G’night, Wayne. Wake me when it’s time to milk the cows.’  

Without bothering to undress, Daryl lay down on the covers of the guest bed, bleeding love that drained the fucking life out of him, humiliated and defeated. He couldn’t decide whether experiencing that one awkward kiss was worse than leaving without ever having kissed Wayne. Either way, he still had to stay for choring, and hear those fucking words every time he laid eyes on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about this, you guys... But as they say, it's got to get worse before it gets better, so bear with me.


	5. I would still shatter at your touch

‘Wake up, big shoots, time to get to work.’ Wayne gave Daryl’s shoulder a brief shake, squinting down at him.

‘Yeah,’ Daryl said, sitting up to rub his sore eyes with a groan, ‘pitter patter...’

Wayne tossed him his coveralls and left Daryl to put them on, his footfalls disappearing downstairs.

The kitchen smelled like coffee when Daryl entered, and Wayne slid him a mug across the counter top. Daryl accepted it like he accepted the hangover headache pounding in his skull, the awkwardness, and the previous night’s humiliation. He’d get through this like every other shitty thing in his life. After choring he’d proceed as planned, and make himself forget he’d ever been here.

Working with the dairy cows came naturally even after such a long time, which drove home how much he missed the work. The quiet sounds of the barn, too; the cows’ curious snuffling and the occasional moo, the hum of the milking equipment. Wayne’s routine hadn’t changed, and they didn’t need to talk in order to work side by side.

They returned to the house for breakfast, and sat eating across from each other without a word. Katy still slept.

‘Thanks for letting me stay the night,’ Daryl said when he finished the last of his coffee and got up. ‘I’m gonna head over to my mom’s and say goodbye if we’re done here.’

Wayne looked at him as if he’d grown two heads. ‘…Fucking why?’

Daryl shrugged.

Wayne pushed his chair back in a motion that could easily be mistaken for anger or aggression. Daryl followed him with his eyes until Wayne halted in front of him at an arm’s length, and reached across the distance to clasp his shoulder. ‘What's the fuss?’

‘Take a guess.’

Wayne frowned. ‘I told you I’d need some time to get used to it.’

‘Yeah, good for you,’ Daryl muttered, shrugging off the touch. ‘But for me it’s more than just awkward to be around you, okay?’

‘I thought the whole point was that you wanted to be around me.’

Daryl stuffed his hands in his pockets and shook his head.

Wayne gently but inexorably pulled him closer by the front of his coveralls, and wrapped arms around him. Daryl couldn’t help himself. He closed his eyes and rested the side of his face against Wayne’s.

‘Here’s what we’re going to do and I’ll tell you,’ Wayne said. ‘You’ll stay the weekend and help me figure this whole fucking thing out. You belong here, and I want you to come back for good, but you can’t expect me to know how to be gay overnight. I’m going to need some help with that.’

‘Now you’re just talking out of your ass.’

‘I wouldn’t talk shit if my mouth was full of it.’ Wayne’s hand came up to brush Daryl’s curls back from his face. ‘Listen, I had a real hard time with you taking off like that, and now that you came back and told me your side of things… makes me think that maybe you’ve got the right idea there.’

‘Don’t,’ Daryl muttered when Wayne’s mouth sought his, his day-old stubble rasping Daryl’s skin.

It effectively cut Daryl's protests short, with how good it felt to have arms around him and get kissed without feeling like he was forcing it.

Wayne didn’t taste like darts and alcohol yet this early in the morning, and his touch was warm and reassuring in finding purchase on Daryl’s waist through the fabric of his coveralls. Daryl couldn’t decide whether he should be letting this happen and let Wayne figure it out, or whether he should be doing more to sell it to him. What Wayne proposed sounded too good to be true, but given half a chance, Daryl would likely drop everything for a chance to leave Toronto and move back here. He supposed he could give it a weekend and see what happened.

‘Still awkward?’ Daryl asked when Wayne pulled away.

‘I’ve been thinking about that a long fucking time last night, and do you want to know what was so fucking awkward about it? That it made me want to – ’ Wayne hesitated, and averted his face. ‘It’s impolite to talk about.’

They went to fetch Daryl's van at his mom’s first, and got back to choring as they used to. Halfway through the morning, Daryl caught Wayne staring pensively at an empty enclosure in the barn.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘She ought to have a pony, don’t you think? A little girl should have a pony.’

Daryl shrugged. ‘Ask her if she wants one.’ 

Wayne looked back over his shoulder at Daryl. ‘Don’t you mind? That me and Tanis have a kid together?’

‘Why would I mind? I don't hate kids.’

‘’Kay.’

The day crept by. Wayne seemed more content to put his back into the work than to say anything else on the matter, and Daryl didn’t have the guts to initiate any more kissing. Over dinner, Katy commented on their close-mouthedness and the tension once, but she didn’t press for a reason why, figuring the years apart were explanation enough. When she disappeared to go out, Wayne and Daryl sat drinking beers on the porch until the sun set, which was all too soon with autumn approaching. The TV provided some distraction, after, and it was easier to seek some contact that way; pretending it wasn’t happening while they watched sports.

Over the course of an hour, they migrated more towards each other until Wayne slung his arm around Daryl’s shoulders across the back rest of the couch, and Daryl gathered enough courage to tilt his head up and kiss him. Hands followed to feel hard, lean muscle through checkered shirts, and fuck if that didn’t get him going. Sitting there, the entire lengths of their bodies touching in one way or another and their tongues slipping in and out of each other’s mouths, Daryl was glad he still wore his coveralls with the arms tied around his hips.

‘Is this what it’s going to be like?’ Wayne asked, smoothing a hand down Daryl’s chest. ‘Just us being pals and doing some kissing?’

Daryl made an attempt to close his mouth and control his breathing. ‘I imagine there could be some toe-curling, if you wanted.’

Wayne looked at him a long moment. ‘Yeah, I could go for some toe-curling.’

‘What, right now?’

‘Well, why the fuck not…?’

‘That’s a Texas-sized 10-4.’

‘Let’s get at her, then.’

Undressing in Wayne’s bedroom was once again awkward. It was hard to look, but also hard to look away, and neither of them wasted any time getting under the covers. In the comfort of Wayne’s bed, it became a bit less nerve-wracking to reach out and feel naked skin, to scoot closer until they were all pressed up against each other, their abdomens touching every time they breathed in at the same time.

Wayne seemed a little uncertain how to go about it when both of them grew impatient with the slow kisses and experimental touches, so Daryl ushered him onto his back and pushed the covers to the foot end of the bed to kneel between his legs. Propping himself up on his elbows, Wayne watched him lower his head with an intent expression that made Daryl a bit self-conscious. Wayne’s hand running through his hair put him at ease well enough when he did.

In the few and far-between moments he’d ever allowed himself to fantasize about what it’d be like, he never imagined that the little things would turn him on so much; the tension in Wayne’s thighs, the glint of his curly blond body hair as Daryl ran his fingers through it, the soft sounds encouraging him to keep going. Then again, the effect of a hard cock in his mouth couldn’t be discounted, sliding against his palate, or the hand on his head urging him to take it deeper.

The sound of his name falling from Wayne’s lips stopped him dead in his tracks.

‘Daryl…’

Daryl lifted his head to look at him. ‘You okay?’

Wayne beckoned him to come lie in his arms. ‘Take about twenty percent off her there, or this is going to be over real quick,’ he murmured.

Daryl smiled to himself, burrowing in the embrace. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Well… what would you normally do with another dude?’

‘I’d fuck him.’

It took Wayne a second to reply. ‘’Kay.’

‘What?’

‘Since you know how dudes get fucked… Might as well.’

It was rare that Daryl ever had the chance to do this properly with someone, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to take his time and make it good for both of them. Keeping Wayne right on the edge throughout the prep was a heady thing, especially when he reached the limits of his endurance and bit out: ‘Just fucking do it, Dar.’

Hoisting one of Wayne’s legs around his waist, he did, pushing his cock into him with a patience he didn’t really have – neither of them had – until Wayne grabbed his hips and hauled him as close as they would go. Daryl’s arms shook with a mixture of exertion and excitement, and they lay panting and searching each other’s face for the span of a heartbeat.

Daryl didn’t register which of them cursed or whether they both did, but he was so hard and his cock twitched with every minute shift of their bodies and he had to move –

Resting their foreheads together, he supported himself with one arm as he reached between them with the other. It was rough and uncoordinated and messy, but seeing Wayne’s face contort in pleasure underneath him was everything he wanted.

‘I thought it’d be a whole bunch softer, you know? Being gay,’ Wayne said, running his hands across Daryl’s sweaty back as they caught their breath.  

Daryl smiled to himself when Wayne pressed a kiss to the top of his head, because that right there was a little soft, but he didn’t give a care.

‘Let’s go get your stuff tomorrow.’

‘How about we give this some time? I can come to the farm on the weekends.’

‘Darry,’ Wayne protested, which didn’t make the decision any easier.

‘This is not going to go away on my part, but I gotta feel a bit more sure you ain’t gonna have second thoughts before I pack up all my shit and quit my job, okay?’  

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake…’

‘It’s been four years. What’s a couple more weeks?’

A long fucking time, it appeared. It took about two sleepovers at the farm for Daryl to put in his notice at work and start counting down the days until his return to Letterkenny, which couldn’t come soon enough. Wayne, Katy, and Squirelly Dan helped him move his belongings the day after his work in Toronto ended even if his lease hadn’t, yet.

They all sat around the kitchen table at the farm drinking that afternoon, and Wayne opened another bottle of whiskey when they burned through the first. Knocking back a shot, he slammed it back on the table and looked at Daryl with the smallest smile.

‘Welcome back to fucking Letterkenny.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate your feedback, and if you've got a good prompt for me for something you'd like to read next, hit me up and I'll see what I can do.
> 
> If you're interested in reading more of my work about farm homos among other things, check out my original novels here on AO3:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/8110039/chapters/18586978  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984777/chapters/29686392


End file.
